Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
with Rome. But because water is a strange element, and sailors “from time immemorial a
strange race apart,” we don't hold navies in the high regard that we should. “The navy is
essentially a light corps,” Mahan goes on, “it keeps open the communications between its
own ports; it obstructs those of the enemy; but it sweeps the sea for the service of the land,
it controls the desert that man may live and thrive on the habitable globe.”
8
And so, Mahan intones, “It is not the taking of individual ships or convoys” that is cru-
cial; rather, “it is the possession of that overbearing power on the sea which drives the en-
emy's flag from it, or allows it to appear only as a fugitive” that is so important. And “if
a nation be so situated that it is neither forced to defend itself by land nor induced to seek
extension of its territory by way of the land, it has, by the very unity of its aim directed
upon the sea, an advantage as compared with a people one of whose boundaries are contin-
ental.”
9
England and America are so situated, and both have experienced long periods of global
power in the course of history. But America's geographical position, Mahan implies, has
real disadvantages, too. Yes, America is a massive, well-endowed, virtual island in the tem-
perate zone, independent of the debilitating power struggles in Eurasia, but at the same time
it is a yawning distance from Eurasian ports, especially in the Pacific, which inhibits its
ability to exert influence over them. The building of a Central American canal in Panama,
which he foresees in his topic, will bring American merchant and war fleets into greater
contact with both ends of Eurasia. But the distance will still be great, and that will be the
“cause of enormous expense.” Though the real effect of the Panama Canal will be the trans-
formation of the Caribbean from a “terminus” and “place of local traffic” into “one of the
great highways of the world,” as the ships of not only the United States, but of European
nations, transit the canal en route to the Pacific. With this, he says, “it will not be so easy
as heretofore” for the United States “to stand aloof from international complications.”
10
Geography, which makes the isthmian canal possible in the first place, also necessitates
closer ties between the United States and its Central American and Caribbean neighbors in
order to protect the canal and control the seas nearby. By making America physically closer
to Asia, and more involved with Europe through shipping, the canal would help effect the
eventual enfeeblement of isolationism and the consequent rise of a muscular liberal inter-
nationalism in the corridors of power in Washington. But it certainly wasn't destiny, despite
the commanding role of geography. For the Panama Canal was the upshot of several phe-
nomena all involving human agency: the Spanish-American War, the great power politics
that ultimately denied any European nation a role in the project, the backroom deal-making
that resulted in the choice of Panama over Nicaragua, the conquest of disease in the Cen-
tral American tropics, and above all immense labor and ingenuity. Once again, geography
provides the backdrop for what human choice arranges.
